


Walking in the frosty London air

by AsheTarasovich (natalieashe), Boffin1710



Series: Can't Drown My Demons, They Know How To Swim [50]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 23:23:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17192156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalieashe/pseuds/AsheTarasovich, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/pseuds/Boffin1710
Summary: I hear the words he is asking of me but sometimes the words are just not there.





	Walking in the frosty London air

**Alec...**

You smell of frosty London air.  It clings to you like fog to the Thames.  I close my eyes and imagine I can feel it wrapping around us, rolling off you, to chill me more than the fear already has.  

You stand quiet.  

Still.  

Arms dangle by your sides and your shoulders droop. 

You don't resist when I wrap my arms tightly around you and reassure myself that you are here.

"Where the bloody fuck have you been?  It's been four hours! Four fucking hours, Q!  I thought... Fuck, I thought..."

"I needed some air.  Walls were closing in."

"Air?!"

Sharp as a slap.  I know I've touched a nerve because you stiffen in my arms and then pull away, marching to the kitchen and flinging open the fridge door.  You snatch a can of Coke from the shelf and head to the living room leaving me standing there.

Wrestling with my words, trying to explain how frantic I've been since I woke to find you gone after our fight last night.

I'm primed to explode at your irresponsibility.  

You are crouched on the floor, knees to your chest.  Your arms are wrapped around your knees, cradling the can of Coke and staring at it moodily.  

It's not even open.

Two steps into the room, I realise where you have positioned yourself.  What it is you are silently asking for. I drop into the armchair beside you.  Hand wanders to the back of your neck and rests there lightly stroking.

Connection.  

Trust.

Bare toes - your shoes are flung across the room - are buried in the fluffy rug both of us hate but neither can bear to dispose of.  We agreed to buy it, both thinking the other loved it, and by the time we figure out the truth, Amelie had taken it for her own.

You are silent for a long time but I don't press until finally you let out a deep sigh.

"Tell me."

I wait for the words to flow.

**Q…**

I hear the words he is asking of me but sometimes the words are just not there.

“Use your words Malyutka”.  I hear the request again.

“I know I’ve worked too long.  Too much going on. Missions.” I sigh curling in on myself farther, if that is even possible.  “Should delegate. This I couldn’t. Needed to coordinate it all.”

If he could see my face, he could see the eye roll of frustration in trying to find a way to verbalise it, to be able to convey it all.   “Just need…”

But these are the moments when hours have turned into days.  

Too many missions that lives hang by a thread at times.  

Too much screen time.  

Too much information.  

Too many voices.  

And it all is still churning in my head….

Loudly.  

Making it oh so difficult to… anything… to just be.  

The voices that are ‘oh so loud’ in my head tend to drown out my own from simply asking for what I need to ground me, bring me back to some semblance of balance.  

They, however, tend to not drown out my ‘angry’ voice.

So, when you put two stormy people in the same room with an emotional level that is out of sync, those cutting rude words tend to still come up and out on the surface.

Alec’s hand stroke across my neck, up into my hair, drawing me in close.  I lean my head on his thigh seeking closeness and in apology for the angry loud words I hurdled at him earlier.

“And it didn't help matters that I read the situation and what you needed wrong, did it?”  Alec fingers barely brushed across my cheek. “And so, the walk.”

“Didn’t help.  Sometimes it does.”  Losing myself in just being out sometimes helps.  Wandering through the streets. Watching the Thames in its slow journey through the city, a life unto itself.  

Giving up the noise,

thoughts,

emotions… 

to the mystical urban world that surrounds us every day.

Sometimes it helps to quiet all the ‘loud’ that is threatening to consume me.  

Tonight it didn’t.

There is a gentle kiss to the top of my head and a large calloused hand appears in front of my face, “Come Malyutka.  Let me see what I can do to help settle you.”

And sometimes, I don’t need to be able to express the words and ask.  Those who know me better than anyone else, understand what I need.

And I am grateful for that.

 


End file.
